Explore topic-wise InterviewSolutions in .

Correct option is A. Paradox

Correct option is C. Litotes

Correct option is D. Both’ ‘A’ and ‘B’

Correct option is D. Repetition

Correct option is B. Exclamation

Childhood symbolizes innocence, purity, softness and love. As a child grows, these qualities start receding. Man becomes impure, cunning, shrewd and hypocrite. Grown-ups become blatant liars. They talk of love but practice hatred. They preach brother hood of mankind but perpetuate hatred and killing. Simplicity and honesty evaporate into thin air, the moment man crosses the threshold of innocent childhood.

He has used these two questions to interpret the time and place of way of going his childhood away. ‘When’ points out the process of being rational at a particular time and ‘where’ states the place where the innocent world of childhood resides.

The poet does not appear to feel sad or upset at the loss of his childhood. He only seems to be puzzled at the disappearance of childhood and the arrival of adulthood. He expresses his confusion when he asks the questions ‘When and Where did my childhood go’?

The process of being grown-up develops the critical thinking and analytical point of view it the person. It makes the person rationalized and able to take his decision by virtue of his seat of reasoning.

The lines that seem to be the most poetic are: ‘It went to some forgotten place, That’s hidden in an infant’s face; That’s all I know. These lines sum up beautifully the process of growth and the disappearance of a particular stage of life. These lines express metaphorically that an infant’s innocent face hides many things behind its smiles. Perhaps the childhood also lies hidden somewhere in the child’s consciousness.

The poet regards childhood as a period of heavenly innocence. A child sincerely feels that there is god above. He is free from all earthly evils. He believes that there is really a Hell and a Heaven. He is truly religious in his soul. A child knows no hypocrisy. He always means what he says.

There is no difference between his thoughts and actions. A child is free from any sense of ego. He does not think himself to be different from or superior to others. In short, childhood is a state of heavenly innocence and purity of heart.

He expresses concern over his childhood’s disappearance. Childhood cannot be regained. It keeps our life aloof from the world of hypocrisy, bitter reality and materialism.

As a person grows up, he becomes a rationalist, an egoist and a hypocrite. He accepts nothing that is not logical. He loses faith in God. He does not believe in Hell and Heaven. He becomes very conscious of himself. He wants to follow his own desires and ideas. He becomes an egoist. He talks of love and preaches of love, but is not so loving in his actions. In short, he loses all his innocence of his childhood.

According to the poem, the process of growing up involves the attainment of mental maturity. A person is said to be grown up when he has become logical, rational and is able to build his own thoughts. A grown-up has the power to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

A grown-up individual understands the actions of others just as the poet recognises the hiatus between the preaching and the practice of the adults. He realises the hypocrisy and the double standards maintained by the adults. A mature individual also asserts his thoughts and opinions.

The repetition of the lines; usually at the end or the beginning of the poem is called the ‘refrain’. Refrains carries the central message of the poem. Here, the lines “When did my childhood go ?” and “was that day” are examples of refrain. The first refrain is the central theme of the poem as to when have the poet lost his childhood while the second refrain ends with an exclamation which brings out the poet’s realization.

The poem, ‘Childhood’ focuses on the theme of the loss of innocence. Markus Natten, the poet wonders when and where he lost his childhood. He ponders over this question and highlights the loss of innocence and faith in the quest of growing up.

Adolescence or childhood is a puzzling time when a child is unable to settle with the physical, psychological and other changes in his personality. He becomes a ‘young adult’; he neither wants to call himself a child nor is he completely an adult. He finally finds his answers that he lost his childhood to some forgotten place and that his childhood has become a memory.

Individuality – Third stanza; Rationalism -First stanza; Hypocrisy – Second stanza